Emperor Justinian I and the Second Council of Constantinople
Justinian I (482 - 565) was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565, and so enjoyed a vast amount of political, military, and religious power. In the year 543 or slightly before, he seems to have encountered a number of anti-Origenist writings and became convinced that Origen and his ‘heretical’ doctrines needed to be anathematized. In a letter to Mennas, the patriarch of Constantinople, dated to 543, he describes several heresies that he attributed to Origen, including subordinationism and Arianism, the idea that resurrected bodies would be spherical and incorporeal, the pre-existence of souls and their co-eternality with God, and the eventual restoration of the devil and his angels, along with wicked humans.
Although Origen himself likely did not believe in any of these doctrines, apart from the restoration of all rational beings, Justinian decided that Origen and ‘Origenism’ should be condemned. He convened a local synod at Constantinople in that same year, 543, to anathematize these beliefs. The list of anathemas from this synod are quoted below:
1. If anyone says or holds that the souls of human beings pre-exist, as previously minds and holy powers, but that they reached satiety with divine contemplation and turned to what is worse and for this reason grew old in the love of God and are therefore called souls, and were made to descend into bodies as a punishment, let him be anathema.
2. If anyone says or holds that the Lord’s soul pre-existed and came into being united to God the word before the incarnation and birth from a virgin, let him be anathema.
3. If anyone holds or says that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was first formed in the womb of the holy Virgin and that afterwards both God the word and the soul, being pre-existent, were united to it, let him be anathema.
4. If anyone says or holds that the Word of God became like all the heavenly orders, becoming cherubim for the cherubim, seraphim for the seraphim, and becoming (in a word) like all the powers above, let him be anathema.
5. If anyone says or holds that at the resurrection the bodies of human beings will be raised spherical and does not profess that we shall be raised upright, let him be anathema.
6. If anyone says or holds that heaven, sun, moon, stars, and the waters above the heavens are ensouled and rational powers, let him be anathema.
7. If anyone says or holds that in the age to come Christ the Master will be crucified on behalf of demons as well as on behalf of human beings, let him be anathema.
8. If anyone says or holds that God’s power is finite and that he created [only] what he could grasp and comprehend, or that creation is coeternal with God, let him be anathema.
9. If anyone says or holds that the punishment of demons and impious human beings is temporary and that it will have an end at some time, and that there will be a restoration of demons and impious human beings, let him be anathema.
It is significant that Justinian only had a problem with the punishment of demons and “impious” humans, rather than of all unbelievers. This was also the view of Jerome of Stridon just before his death, as described in the previous post of this series, and yet Jerome still argued for the eventual restoration of all other unbelievers and that God’s punishments would be restorative.
However, the real problem for universalism did not begin until the fifth ecumenical council at Constantinople, in 553. Most Catholics and Orthodox consider that this council absolutely condemned the apokatastasis, based on the fourteenth of fifteen anathemas against Origen associated with this council. According to this anathema,
If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day be united in one henad [1], when the hypostases as well as the numbers and the bodies shall have disappeared, and that the knowledge of the world to come will carry with it the ruin of the worlds, and the rejection of bodies as also the abolition of names, and that there shall be finally an identity of the Gnosis and of the hypostasis; moreover, that in this pretended apokatastasis, spirits only will continue to exist, as it was in the feigned pre-existence: let him be anathema.
This is a highly imprecise and inaccurate way of describing the Origenian apokatastasis! First of all, it misunderstands Origen’s idea of the resurrection; he did not believe that our bodies would disappear in the resurrection, or that we shall all become one, but rather that our bodies in the resurrection would become ‘spiritual’ (which is a Pauline statement, not unique to Origen; 1 Cor. 15:42-44). Second, it says that the knowledge of the apokatastasis carries with it the ‘ruin of the worlds’, which is an incorrect way of describing Origen’s belief that the apokatastasis would be at the consummation of the ages, not the ruin of the worlds. And third, it claims that Origen taught the pre-existence of souls; although some followers of Origen did believe this, Origen himself only believed that souls existed in the foreknowledge of God prior to their creation.
Even more problematic for the argument that universal apokatastasis was condemned at Constantinople II is the fact that these fifteen anathemas against Origen don’t appear in the original, official acts of this council. In fact, they were first discovered in the seventeenth century by Peter Lambeck, the librarian of Vienna. It is highly unlikely that these anathemas originally belonged to the fifth ecumenical council, since the pope Gregory the Great writes at length about the decisions of this council in his Epistle 51, and yet does not talk once about Origen himself. The more likely option is that they were taken from a letter delivered from Justinian to the bishops at the council, regarding a set of beliefs that he wanted them to anathematize (although they did not):
...that all will be raised again to the same henad and become minds (as they were in their pre-existence), when indeed the devil himself and the other demons are restored to the same henad, and when impious and godless human beings will be with godly and inspired men and the heavenly powers and will enjoy the same union with God that Christ too enjoys, just as in their pre-existence, with the result that there will be no difference at all between Christ and the remaining rational beings, neither in substance nor in knowledge nor in power nor in operation... On account of these wicked and destructive doctrines, or rather ravings, we bid you most sacred ones to assemble together, read the appended exposition attentively, and condemn and anathematize each of these articles together with the impious Origen and all those who hold or have held these beliefs till death. (Acts of the Council of Constantinople 2.282-284)
Thus, although Justinian wanted the council of Constantinople II to condemn Origenist beliefs including the universal apokatastasis, it’s probable that they didn’t actually do so - and even if they had, the doctrine that was condemned bears little to no resemblance to the actual doctrine of universal reconciliation propounded by Origen and his 4th-century followers.
Even more evidence that the council did not anathematize universalism and those who believed in it comes from the acts of the council itself. They say that “we hold fast to the decrees of the four Councils, and in every way follow the holy Fathers... Gregory of Nyssa... and their writings on the true faith.” Since Gregory Nyssen himself, an outspoken advocate for universalism, and his writings are venerated by the bishops at the council, we can be almost certain that their purpose was not to condemn universalism.
Post-Justinian universalists: Maximus the Confessor and Isaac the Syrian
Further proof that universalism was not officially condemned in 553 is the fact that there were a few Christian theologians and writers who, although holding to the infallibility of the ecumenical councils, believed in and preached universal reconciliation. The first of these is Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 - 662), a venerated saint according to both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition. As many patristic scholars have noticed, the doctrine of universal apokatastasis appears in multiple places throughout his writings:
And this [the universe] is because it is for the sake of Christ—that is, for the whole mystery of Christ—that all the ages and the beings existing within those ages received their beginning and end in Christ. For the union of the limit of the age and the limitlessness, of measure and immeasurability, of finitude and infinity, of Creator and creation, and of rest and motion, was conceived before the ages. (The Responses to Thallasios 60.4)
God will truly come to be “all in all,” embracing all and giving substance to all in himself, in that no being will have any more a movement independent of God, and no being will be deprived of God’s presence. Thanks to this presence, we shall be, and shall be called, gods and children, body and limbs, because we shall be restored to the perfection of God’s project. (Ambigua 7; transl. by Ilaria Ramelli)
The end of the natural motion of whatever has been originated is rest, which, after the passage beyond finite things, is produced completely by infinity, for in the absence of any spatial or temporal interval, every motion of whatever is naturally moved ceases, henceforth having nowhere, and no means whereby, and nothing to which it could be moved, since it has attained its goal and cause, which is God, who is Himself the limit of the infinite horizon that limits all motion. Thus the beginning and end of every origin and motion of beings is God, for it is from Him that they have come into being, and by Him that they are moved, and it is in Him that they will achieve rest (Ambigua 15)
“Death is the last enemy to be destroyed” means whenever we, ourselves, submit the entire self-determining will to God, then the last enemy is also abolished. And it is called “death” since God is life, and that which is opposed to life is fittingly called death. (Questions and Doubts 21)
Maximus also certainly believed in judgment and punishment in Gehenna, and taught that in it there would be “an intensification and increase of punishment” (Ambigua 42.15) and a “more feared fire that is fused perpetually into one mass with worms” (Questions and Doubts 96), among other passages which seem to suggest eternal torment. For this reason, some scholars have suggested that he was a ‘hopeful universalist’ along the lines of Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom, who believed that both infernalism and universalism were equally possible.
However, there is a much better explanation which takes into account the apparent inconsistencies in Maximus’ theology. Rather than admitting that universalism is only possible, he writes in The Reponses to Thallasios (59.11) that “divinization will be present in actuality to all” — not merely possible, but in actuality. Therefore, his apparently infernalist statements must be interpreted in a different way. An answer to this solution can be found in Maximus’ own writings:
It would have been possible to give this theme [of Christ’s universal victory in Php. 2:9-11] a more mystical and sublime interpretation. But because, as you know, the deeper secrets of the divine doctrines must not be committed to writing, let the above be enough to satisfy those who seek a more detailed understanding of this question. When God grants us to come together again, we shall inquire assiduously into the apostolic mind regarding this question. (The Responses to Thallasios 21.8)
This brings to mind one of Origen’s own statements, from Contra Celsus (6.26):
It is in the precincts of Jerusalem, then, that punishments will be inflicted upon those who undergo the process of purification, who have received into the substance of their soul the elements of wickedness, which in a certain place is figuratively termed “lead”, and on that account iniquity is represented in Zechariah as sitting upon a “talent of lead”. But the remarks which might be made on this topic are neither to be made to all, nor to be uttered on the present occasion; for it is not unattended with danger to commit to writing the explanation of such subjects, seeing the multitude need no further instruction than that which relates to the punishment of sinners; while to ascend beyond this is not expedient, for the sake of those who are with difficulty restrained, even by fear of eonian punishment, from plunging into any degree of wickedness, and into the flood of evils which result from sin.
So it seems that Maximus the Confessor, following the author of the Apocalypse of Peter [2] and Origen, merely had the interest of the common population in mind when apparently describing eternal torment. He was not an infernalist or a ‘hopeful’ universalist. For more evidence that Maximus was a full universalist and not merely agnostic on this issue, see this article by Mark Chenoweth.
Another post-Constantinople II universalist is Isaac of Nineveh “the Syrian” (613 - 700), a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and other Eastern and Syriac churches. He wrote five books full of ascetic homilies, the first three of which are now known to us (and parts of the fifth). In the Second Part of his series of homilies, he expresses a highly universalistic view of Gehenna, and writes that all people will be saved out of it through God’s love:
For it would be most odious and utterly blasphemous to think that hate or resentment exists with God, even against demonic beings... Rather, He acts towards us in ways He knows will be advantageous to us, whether by way of things that cause suffering, or by way of things that cause relief, whether they cause joy or grief, whether they are insignificant or glorious: all are directed towards the single eternal good, whether each receives judgement or something of glory from Him—not by way of retribution, far from it!—but with a view to the advantage that is going to come from all these things. (Second Part 39.3)
I am of the opinion that He is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of Gehenna’s torment: out of it the wealth of His love and power and wisdom will become known all the more—and so will the insistent might of the waves of His goodness... It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them—and whom nonetheless He created (Second Part 39.6)
Accordingly we say that, even in the matter of the afflictions and sentence of Gehenna, there is some hidden mystery, whereby the wise Maker has taken as a starting point for its future outcome the wickedness of our actions and wilfulness, using it as a way of bringing to perfection His dispensation wherein lies the teaching which makes wise, and the advantage beyond description, hidden from both angels and human beings, hidden too from those who are being chastised, whether they be demons or human beings, hidden for as long as the ordained period of time holds sway. (Second Part 39.20)
Isaac also cites as authorities on this issue Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, both fourth-century Church fathers, who apparently believed that punishment would come to an end (as also attested by John of Dara and Solomon of Basra). In his opinion, Gehenna was not a place of retributive punishment, but ultimately a place of love where the souls of unbelievers are “scourged by the scourge of love” and thereby purified (First Part 28).
John the Scot: the last medieval Christian universalist
John Eriugena (c. 815 - 877) or John ‘the Scot’ was a highly Origenistic poet and theologian of the medieval period. He seems to have reinvented many of the doctrines propounded by Origen, although he based his theology solely on scripture and early Christian writings. Interestingly, he seems to have been strongly influenced by the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, all three of whom were universalists or hopeful universalists [3].
John’s universalism is found most clearly in books 4 and 5 of his Periphyseon, although it is also present in his other writings. Here are a number of quotes from the Periphyseon that demonstrate his belief in universal apokatastasis:
For if Christ Who understands all things, Who indeed is the understanding of all things, really unified all that He assumed, who doubts but that what first took place in the Head and principal Exemplar of the whole of human nature will eventually happen in the whole, as we shall consider in the fifth book? (Book II.545B)
Now we come to the Fourth Book which starts with the works of the Sixth Prophetic Meditation of the creation of the Universe, goes on to consider the Return of all things into that Nature which neither creates nor is created, and so brings our work to its conclusion. (Book IV.743C)
For it is not in accordance with the Divine Justice that anything should perish of that which He has made, especially as it is not nature herself who has sinned, but the perverse will which moves irrationally against rational nature. (Book IV.760C)
For in itself evil is a deformity and an abhorrent ugliness which, if the erring sense beheld undisguised, it would not only refuse to follow or take delight in, but would flee from and abhor. But the unwitting sense errs, and in erring is deceived, because it takes the evil for something which is good and fair to look upon and pleasant to taste. (Book IV.826C)
among the Greeks “beginning” is called telos, which really means “end”; they name both beginning and end telos without distinction — what but the Return of our nature to its beginning, out of which it was made, and in which and through which it moves and towards which its tendency is always to return? For all men in general, whether perfect or imperfect, chaste or defiled, redeemed through knowledge of truth in Christ, or lingering in the darkness of the ignorance of the Old Man, have one and the same natural yearning after being and well-being and being forever... And if it is a necessary rule that every natural activity is ceaseless and unresting until it attain the end it seeks, what can check or restrain or arrest the necessary activity of human nature from arriving at that towards which it naturally tends? For there is no creature which desires and tends towards not-being; and does not rather shun it lest it should happen to cease to be, and indeed, how hard it would be for anything which is made by Him Who truly is and is beyond being to return to nothing. (Book V.867C-868A)
the Cause of all things and the end of all things is the same. (Book V.871A)
The first step in the Return of our human nature is taken when the body suffers dissolution and turns back into the four elements of the sensible world from which it was composed. The second is fulfilled at the Resurrection when each shall take his own body out of the common fund of the four elements. The third when body is changed into soul. The fourth when soul, and in fact the whole human nature, shall revert to its Primordial Causes, which ever and immutably abide in God. The fifth when that spirit with its Causes is absorbed into God as air is absorbed in light. For when there is nothing but God alone, God will be all things in all things. By this I am not trying to prove that the substance of physical nature will perish, but that by these aforesaid states it will change into something better. (Book V.876A-B)
Of these stages of the Return of which I have been speaking some are universally accepted by traditional theology, while others are the subject of the widest disagreement. Thus, there is no dispute about the return of the body into the elements from which it came nor of its temporal resurrection into itself: but concerning the passing or transmutation of body into soul, or of soul into the Causes, or of all into God, opinions differ greatly, and almost every possible teaching has its supporters. (Book V.876C-D)
To avoid this article becoming too long, I will stop here. However, John’s argument and defense of universal apokatastasis is much longer than this, and takes up all of book 5 of his Periphyseon. If any reader is curious, a translation of the Periphyseon is available here.
What’s most intriguing about John’s theology is that, although he shares many doctrines with Origen as can be seen above, he hardly ever cites Origen himself or acknowledges that his ideas came from Origen; rather, he derives his beliefs solely from the Bible and other early Church writings. Among the doctrines he shares with Origen are: the universal apokatastasis, the ontological non-existence of evil, the spiritual (rather than fleshly) resurrection, and the hermeneutic of two ‘layers’ to scriptural interpretation (literal and allegorical). Moreover, although John admits that his beliefs are relatively unorthodox among his peers, he also acknowledges that there are other supporters of apokatastasis in his time.
Conclusion
Following the first Origenist controversy of the fourth century, there were very few outspoken supporters of apokatastasis; even less so after Justinian caused a second controversy and condemned many doctrines he deemed to be Origenistic. However, neither universalism nor the apokatastasis were ever officially condemned. One anathema against apokatastasis purported to have been passed by the fifth ecumenical council in 553 likely was not officially ratified, and even if it had been, it did not condemn universalism but an extremely corrupted notion of an ‘Origenist’ apokatastasis.
Furthermore, even following the fifth ecumenical council, there were a few orthodox supporters of universal apokatastasis. St. Maximus the Confessor believed that all humans would eventually undergo a process of ‘divinization’, unbelievers after being purified in increasing punishments. Similarly, Isaac of Nineveh ‘the Syrian’ believed that Gehenna was merely a place of purification out of God’s love, possibly following his predecessor Ephrem the Syrian. [4] Finally, even as late as the ninth century, John Eriugena ‘the Scot’ and apparently a few of his contemporaries still believed in universal apokatastasis. This shows conclusively that universalism was not officially condemned, but rather slowly lost support from the fifth century onward, until it disappeared from Christendom completely in the medieval period.
Part 8: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/02/indeed-very-many-part-8-summary-and.html
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[1] A henad is a unity separate from the unity of God, who is the ‘monad’.
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